City and Colour lack exactly that on The Love Still Held Me Near

It’s well up to standard, as always. Perhaps he’s outgrown himself or it’s the lack of an identifiable folk evolution, but his latest record as City and Colour is mostly a rehashing of his past, a meditative but largely uninteresting almost 60 minutes.

Curiously, The Love Still Held Me Near doesn’t particularly sound like an album from the year 2023. Conservative and wistful, its melodies and instrumentals conjure up the warm nostalgia of nearly two decades ago. The tones evoke a sort of blurry nostalgia – exactly the type of music that’d be played on an adult contemporary radio station in 2007.

If there’s one thing noticeably lacking here, and it’s the album being noticeable in itself, coincidentally. For a body of work with such an emotional theme, it lacks the diversity or profoundness to hold one’s attention for longer than a couple songs. And just a little too often, lyrical cliché creeps up on you. Rooted in Green’s experience coping with the death of his best friend Karl Bareham, the painful honesty at the centre of the record is clear. It was written during the pandemic, and throughout it lies a vein of tender hopefulness paralleled with the pangs of grief.

The music, whilst remaining quite safe and homogenous, is by no means uninspired. There are definitely some smart melodies buried within it, some brilliant guitar licks, especially on “Underground;” a standout track unfortunately tied down by its borderline trite lyrics.

It’s arguable whether Green’s gift for singing could be used to give us more than he does here, but there are snippets of vocals that really do get you, admittedly. That satisfying melisma as he sings the word “bone” in “The Water is Coming” is one of the more memorable moments on the record, as small as it is. However, it leaves you wanting to hear more of the same, and nothing comparable appears.

The hour-long record flows by and whilst it’s pleasant, it’s ultimately forgettable, running low on the charm necessary to hold replay value. In fact, The Love Still Held Me Near can be summed up in Green’s own word on “Fucked It Up:” “we had everything we needed / but it wasn’t enough.”